The purpose of this study is to present theoretical and experimental evidence for a niche strategy for small and medium online shopping malls to run business against large famous shopping malls prevailing the E-commerce market. For this, the present study demonstrates how chronic construal levels of consumers may affect their alternative choice for online shopping via various contexts (Experiment 1-3) and categories (Experiment 3-5). This series of experiments suggests that consumers with high construal level can be defined as a group that is relatively less susceptible to reputation of the shopping malls. Thus, strategically targeting this group of consumers will help small and medium-sized online malls lacking store reputation to mitigate their competitive disadvantage. Based on both existing literature and the experimental results as above, this research discusses possible methods for small and medium-sized online shopping malls to target high-construal segmentation.

• Jin Won Lee(Xiamen University, China)
• Ji Yoon Kim(Korea University, Republic of Korea)
• Sang Yong Kim(Korea University, Republic of Korea)
• Hee Chan Park(Jinhan Trading Co, Republic of Korea)